West Union, IL
How exposed is West Union to wildfire?
Out of every US place USFS scores, West Union lands at the 3rd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 279 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts West Union at the 3rd percentile, close to its 3rd-percentile risk score.
Where West Union's buildings actually sit
USFS classifies 69.9% of West Union's buildings as Minimal exposure, the largest of the three zones here by a wide margin over 30.1% Direct and 0% Indirect — a landscape-level risk rather than a building-by-building one.
How West Union compares
West Union's 19th-percentile standing inside Illinois outpaces its 3rd national percentile — this is a hotter spot than most of its own state, even though the state as a whole runs cooler nationally. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, West Union ranks 30,602 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 22,216 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 1,173 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in West Union
At the 3rd national percentile, West Union rates low for wildfire risk — well short of the threshold where insurers have been withdrawing coverage, though comparing a quote costs nothing either way.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 69.9% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, West Union gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
West Union's 3rd-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond West Union, see the exposure-zones guide.